Globalisation in many rural parts of the developing world is leading to an increase
in contract farming arrangements. Under these arrangements, landowners or tenants
have contracts with agribusiness marketing and/or processing firms who specify
prices, timing, quality and quantity/acreage of the produce to be delivered. Workers
employed by contract producers tend to experience poor terms and conditions, especially
women workers, and there is an increasing incidence of child labour.
This paper draws on case studies of hybrid cottonseed production in Andhra Pradesh
and vegetable farming in Punjab to examine the labour conditions in contract
farming in India. It argues that agriculture is becoming increasingly ‘feminised’ as
men move out of the sector more quickly than women, and as women become the
preferred labour type for many employers. While these new labour arrangements
have led to marginal increases in real income for some women workers, they have
also changed relationships between workers and employers, workers and work, and
led to differentiation within labour. Women’s wages are generally lower than men’s,
working conditions poorer and their bargaining power more limited. Of greater
concern is the issue of child labour; one of the major problems in contract farming
throughout the developing world. India is one of the main users of child labour in
the Asian region, with almost 80% of working children employed in the agricultural
sector. The majority of these child workers are girls; preferred by employers for
their docility, obedience and ‘nimble fingers’.
The cottonseed case study reveals that children, mainly girls, who might be as young
as six, work from 8.30 am to 6-7 pm. These children might be continuously
employed for six to nine months a year. Yet their employers or contractors have no
requirement to take care of them; if any health problems arise, the children are
simply replaced with a new group. With no social security obligations, there is hardly
any cost involved for the employers. Children miss out on their schooling to work
in the fields, yet child labour under contracting is not subject to any legal or public
disapproval.
The author argues for the need to take a gender perspective to address the whole
question of a changing agrarian production structure under contract farming, especially
issues associated with transfer of skills, choice of technology, organisation of
labour, working conditions and terms of work. He suggests that banning child
labour is not the answer; instead conditions for these children need to be made more
tolerable, and their education and skills need to be built so as to release them and
their families from the vicious cycle of poverty and exploitation. He also calls for
industry-regulated codes of conduct, along with legal provisions, to increase the
voice and influence of contract labourers.
